New Hampton Tuesday July 5, 1830. Quite warm and pleasant day! Arose at the usual time which is six now. Feel some tired from yesterday’s labor. Recited as usual to Prof. in Cicero, in which we now get about eight Sections. A part of our Class have withdrawn because they cannot keep up with us. Some men are smothing [sic] the common before the “Brick Edifice” by blasting rocks &c. I think this place would look much better if more of the stones and other rubbish were cleared away. About ten of the rooms in the “B[rick] Building” are occupied, and I have heard that $500. were subscribed by clergymen only at the last “Baptist Convention” for finishing the same. I went to the village to meeting tonight, and but few males attended. Very good meeting.
Thursday July 8, 1830. Weather quite warm and pleasant. Is as much as I can do to get my Cicero lesson now.
Sunday July 11, 1830. Very warm and clear weather. Went to the Village School house at nine o’clock where a few of the members of the Berean Soc. met. We had a very good meeting. Mr. Evans preached this forenoon on the neccessity [sic] of repentance. I liked him very well. The meeting house was very well filled. I didnt enjoy myself very well. I am so far from the place that I ought to be in that I cannot feel any love to God as I formerly did. I did not go to meeting this evening. I have got a very bad cold some way but I do not [know] how. Wrote a letter home today.
Monday July 12, 1830. Weather very warm. I have so much lesson to get now that I cannot get it well. Went to the Sunday School prayer meeting. But few attended. Mr. Evans and Prof. were present and spoke very well.
Tuesday July 13, 1830. It is quite pleasant today but we had a fine shower this afternoon. Went to the L. Adelphi at four o’clock. I had no exercise to perform.
Wednesday July 14, 1830. Fine weather and a fine shower too this afternoon. The R. Ex’s were not very well attended this afternoon. Both of the debates were not performed because a part of those appointed on them were absent. Gould and myself are appointed to write a Greek Dialogue. Our subject is the Master and Slave. I think we shall have a very good Exhibition this year. Alvares has gone to Concord today and Eaton with him.
Thursday July 15, 1830. Very warm and uncomfortable. I studied my lesson at home.
Friday July 16, 1830. It is about as warm as it has been this year. I wrote a part of my Dialogue this afternoon. …I have not reviewed any of my lesson for tomorrow. Our lessons are so long and hard that I cannot nor do I much care whether I get them well or not. I have got most discouraged about the Latin. I dont think I shall bear a very good examination. I find it is no use for a scholar to be carried along by the class without getting his lessons. It is better for him to get short ones and get them well. A large part of our class have been over all the Cicero before so that they can read it much better than those who have not read it. I want to go on my own legs in this respect or not at all. Two or three have already given up getting such lessons. We shall get through in about a fortnight.
Saturday July 17, 1830. …It is so warm now that it is lazy work to study, or sleepy at least. I went down to the village tonight to see if I had a [package? letter?] there but found none. I am in hopes to have one soon. Tomorrow the meeting is here and I hope it may be a good meeting to me for I think there’s need of it. I am so light and prayerless that I seem to be worse than I ever was. This is wholly on account of duty I have no doubt. I dont pray enough and read and meditate upon the Bible. When these are neglect[ed] then one begins to lose his peace of mind and sinks to a worldliness. I think I have reason to mourn my slugishness [sic].
Sunday July 18, 1830. …At noon Misses Nichols and Goodhue were baptised. The exercises at the waterside were very appropriate and affecting. Prof. spoke very spiritedly and seemed to [be] quite stirred up. It is truly pleasant to see such young persons as these coming out from the world, owning their saviour before men. What can more testify their love for God than this? And what is more lovely in a youth than religion? Before we went to the waterside Prof. took Mr. Ingalls, Eaton and myself into the Lecture Hall and told us that he wished we three to be baptised at once. Mr. Eaton, he said, wished not to be baptised till two or three weeks hence if he thought there was any prospect of our coming forward. He at last concluded to wait, and the Prof. wished us to think upon it prayerfully and to make up our minds soon if we could. Although I have thought much upon this subject, yet I have not fully made up my mind. There [are] some things which appear dark to me and incomprehensible. One is why Christians, one denomination, should be debared [sic] from partaking the Lord’s Supper with those of another if they all profess to have met with a change of heart. I dont know as I have any reason to think that the disciples of Christ could only partake of the Supper and that if there had been any there who were followers of him and had not been baptised [that] they would have been forbidden to sit with them. Yet I may be mistaken and perhaps have a wrong [idea?] of the matter which, if I have, I hope will be corrected. I have so many minds about the subject that I hardly know what to conclude about it. I hope when I am baptised and joined to a church it will be the right one although I would choose to be a Christian of no denomination for I do not like to be on any side. It seems that we are all to be united in heaven and why not on earth and not be so divided, for there, there will be no Baptists, no Congregationalists no Methodists nor any other orders but only those who have been washed and redeemed by the blood of the Saint. It is lamentable that those who call themselves the worshipers of the same God should be so disunited and so as not to go to each other’s meeting in some cases. These things seem to be inconsistent with the character of the followers [of] Christ and I think it to be better if they would be more united.
Friday July 23, 1830. …Last night Mr. Ingalls, Eaton and myself went up to the Profs. and talked with him on the subject of Baptism till eleven. He wishes to have us all come forward together and be baptised soon. I dont know hardly what to do. I am so far from God and all that is good that I cannot make my mind what to do. I think I am more established than I was as to what is the right way.
Saturday July 24, 1830. …I went up to the Soc[iety] and had a very good sing. Some of the village ladies were up. We sang till dark because they could not go home in the shower [which] came over at the time. It thundered, lightninged some. I think farmers will feel grateful for all the rain and fine growing weather this year. I never knew a season, I think, when we have in so regular succession sunshine and foul weather. It is generally admitted that crops will be very plentiful this year if nothing prevents more than is now foreseen. Such blessings as these should surely fill us with gratitude to our Maker who thus orders all things that they may work together for our good. Humiliating thought indeed that such a Being through “infinite condescension” should deign to notice us even so much as we do the meanest creature of creation! The disparity between us and Him is indeed much greater than between us and the smallest of his works.
Friday July 30, 1830. It has been more pleasant today than for some time past. The sun shone some. I wrote upon my Greek Dialogue this afternoon, We expect to hand it in to be examined Monday. It is a great job. We had a good meeting this eve.
Saturday July 31, 1830. Pleasant today. I did not go in to school this morn but was at work on my Dialogue. We went into the water this afternoon. It was cold and high so that it was not very pleasant. I went to the Harmonics Singing Soc., and but an hour, and then Major Dickey and I went a fishing over to Kelley’s Pond. It was a fine evening and we had a pleasant time. I caught ten poats [pouts], Dickey six, and Major none. We got home at twelve o’clock and felt very stiff. This is the last day of another month and how have I spent [it]? I fear not so acceptable to God as is desirable. I am very dead and negligent in the great cause of Christ. May God grant that I may live the next [month? year?] more acceptable to him.